You are here

Actors and actresses

The University of Mary Washington's 2013 Chappell Great Lives Lecture Series continues on Tuesday, February 26, with a lecture on Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe by Carl Rollyson, author of Marilyn Monroe: A Life of the Actress.

All lectures in the university's Great Lives series are held at 7:30pm, in Dodd Auditorium, George Washington Hall, and are free and open to the public.

For more on this topic, check out these items from the library:

Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters by Marilyn Monroe
This work is a collection of Marilyn Monroe's written artifacts, notes to herself, letters, even poems, in her own handwriting, never before published, along with rarely seen intimate photos. These bits of text, jotted in notebooks, typed on paper, or written on hotel letterhead, reveal a woman who loved deeply and strove to perfect her craft. (catalog summary)

Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe by Anthony Summers
Published in 1985. “An important contribution to the literature that seeks to explain and understand the fragile psyche of this truly and tragically wounded soul.” (Amazon.com)

While some memoirs are incredibly complex and intrinsically difficult to categorize, most of the ones I’ve read tend to fit in one of two general groups: the experience-driven and the persona-driven. Avi Steinberg’s Running the Books exemplifies the experience-driven category. Steinberg was an unknown when his memoir was published, and that relative obscurity meant that most readers were not drawn to the book because of his persona or celebrity. It was the topic of the autobiography that caught the public’s attention--the fact that this young man had worked in a prison library and found a way to describe the disorienting experience with both clarity and depth.

Not all stand-up comedians can translate their live energy and timing into textual representation. For Patton Oswalt, however, the transition from stage to page feels effortless and strangely appropriate. In Zombie Spaceship Wasteland, Oswalt treats us to an engaging romp through a motley assortment of his personal experiences, pop-culture obsessions, and comedic experiments. Oswalt introduces the book with a very appropriate confession: “Comedy and terror and autobiography and comics and literature – they’re all the same thing. To me.” And, for once, he isn’t joking.

Zombie Spaceship Wasteland is extremely eclectic, which makes it difficult to relegate to a singular category. There are sections that lean towards the autobiography/memoir side of the spectrum. But there are also humor pieces and miscellaneous experiments, such as an illustrated chapter that feels like a slightly zanier, compressed version of Dylan Dog. There is also an epic poem dedicated to Ulvaak, the last character Oswalt played in Dungeons and Dragons. While the sheer variety of Zombie’s vignettes might seem overwhelming, the book is actually compulsively readable. I found myself eagerly turning the pages, wondering what Oswalt’s fevered brain would churn out next.

Before there was Bridget Jones or Ugly Betty, there was Georgy Parkin. Quirky, plain, sweet and somewhat plump, this well-meaning girl from the wrong social circles looked for love in swinging '60s London.

These three actresses are part of the iconic women in Hollywood’s history known as the blond bombshells. The blond bombshells craze began when Jean Harlow (“The Original Blond Bombshell”) appeared in the appropriately titled film Platinum Blonde (1931). After the film, peroxide flew off the shelves so women could mimic Harlow’s blonde tresses.